Program Officer, Somalia at American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

Essential Responsibilities and Duties:

• Work directly with AFSC implementing partners to plan and implement the program that aims to address the cycle of conflict in Somalia and promote peaceful co-existence among the communities.
• Develop resources, relationships, and processes for increasing the capacity of partner organizations and Somalia to be innovative and creative in peace building initiatives.
• Identify and provide support to planning innovative and creative initiatives by Somali youth, including proposal development for grants seeking.
• Develop and implement an advocacy engagement strategy to respond to issues affecting Somalia youth.
• Articulate AFSC’s values and principles including its commitment to peace and nonviolent approaches to social justice and peacebuilding among partner organizations.
• Provide support to efforts towards spaces and learning circles for peace builders’ interactions through organizational exchange visits, representations, and networking.
• Support research, developing policy briefs, writing of briefs, case studies, program knowledge management and other relevant materials reflecting on best practices and lesson learnt for periodic AFSC Somalia publication and presentation to local and international audiences.
• Support continuous monitoring and evaluation from a results-based perspective. This may include and not limited to review of data collection tools or strategies, recommend intervention strategies and activities from the findings of the current and earlier assessments as well as informed by global and regional trends to ensure ongoing program responsiveness and relevance.
• Produce program reports, craft flyers and brochures, consolidating data, draft power point presentations and prepare reports for publications: Review narrative and financial reports of grants from partners. Assist in developing strategy for external communication and engaging with media.
• Contribute to the development of training modules, curricula, and courses to train trainers to meet the different needs of Somalia program partners.
• Technically support the Somalia program partners to improve in their peace building and trauma healing program delivery to their targeted population with greater impact and effectiveness.
• Carry out regular field visit to the partner sites to monitor implementation progress and offer mentorship and accompaniment to partners.
• Support capacity building of Somalia peace builders in mainstream trauma healing into peacebuilding initiatives.
• Support a strategic mainstreaming of the Somalia programming into AFSC’s Dialogue and Exchange program

Minimum Qualifications:

Education:

• Degree in a relevant field such as psychology, social work, Sociology, development studies, international Affairs, peace/ conflict studies, or related field.

Experience:

• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in relevant work.

Other Required Skills & Abilities:

• Strong Writing, presentation, and interpersonal skills
• Experience in project coordination, relationship building, and remote partnership
• Ability to develop collegial and professional relationships with various stakeholder groups, especially religious and traumatized communities.
• Excellent leadership, facilitation, communication, and peace program development skills.
• The ideal candidate will be highly organized in their work and passionate about trauma healing initiatives that have the power to enhance peaceful coexistence.
• Ability to take own initiative and work both independently and as a team.
• A desire to grow the program and individually through the work.
• Ability to meet deadlines under pressure.
• Capacity to work in a multicultural environment